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CBS SportsLine.com staff and wire reports
[font=Arial, Helvetica]The National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association have cleared the biggest hurdle in their labour negotiations by agreeing on a formula for a salary-cap system based on team-by-team revenue, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported Wednesday.
This has been the most contentious issue between the owners and players, but the Globe and Mail also reported it does not mean a new collective agreement is close to completion.
The negotiating teams are now working on salary arbitration, free agency, qualifying contract offers and other issues, any of which could be deal-breakers.
According to the Globe and Mail report, there will be a team-by-team salary floor and cap based on a percentage of each team's revenue. The actual percentage is not known, although the league had been demanding 54 percent.
In the first year of what is thought to be a six-year deal, based on revenue projections by both sides, the salary cap will range from $34 million to $36 million, with the floor from $22 million to $24 million. What is not clear is how the percentage will be applied to each team, since there is a large disparity in revenue among the NHL's 30 teams.
According to the formula, a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax will kick in at the midway point between the floor and the cap. If the floor of the lowest team proves to be $22 million and the cap on the highest team is $36 million next season, then the tax will come into effect at $29 million.
This will allow the wealthier teams to spend a little more money, but will prevent the large gaps in spending in the previous agreement that saw teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins with payrolls as low as $18 million, while the New York Rangers were spending $80 million.
The luxury tax will be spread among the lower-revenue teams to help them stay at the salary floor or higher. Plans for further revenue sharing are still vague, aside from the owners' offer to share some playoff gates, but management sources say they have long been assured there will be further sharing.
http://www.sportsline.com/nhl/story/8545920[/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica]The National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association have cleared the biggest hurdle in their labour negotiations by agreeing on a formula for a salary-cap system based on team-by-team revenue, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported Wednesday.
This has been the most contentious issue between the owners and players, but the Globe and Mail also reported it does not mean a new collective agreement is close to completion.
The negotiating teams are now working on salary arbitration, free agency, qualifying contract offers and other issues, any of which could be deal-breakers.
According to the Globe and Mail report, there will be a team-by-team salary floor and cap based on a percentage of each team's revenue. The actual percentage is not known, although the league had been demanding 54 percent.
In the first year of what is thought to be a six-year deal, based on revenue projections by both sides, the salary cap will range from $34 million to $36 million, with the floor from $22 million to $24 million. What is not clear is how the percentage will be applied to each team, since there is a large disparity in revenue among the NHL's 30 teams.
According to the formula, a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax will kick in at the midway point between the floor and the cap. If the floor of the lowest team proves to be $22 million and the cap on the highest team is $36 million next season, then the tax will come into effect at $29 million.
This will allow the wealthier teams to spend a little more money, but will prevent the large gaps in spending in the previous agreement that saw teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins with payrolls as low as $18 million, while the New York Rangers were spending $80 million.
The luxury tax will be spread among the lower-revenue teams to help them stay at the salary floor or higher. Plans for further revenue sharing are still vague, aside from the owners' offer to share some playoff gates, but management sources say they have long been assured there will be further sharing.
http://www.sportsline.com/nhl/story/8545920[/font]